The Unchronicled Adventures Of Ahsoka Tano, Book Nine

Chapter Thirty-Five: Nightmares

AHSOKA TANO

Ahsoka had never felt fear like she was feeling it now.

Her mind was ablaze with fire and burning as if in a river of lava. She clapped her hands over her lekku, trying to filter the pain away. Tears squeezed through her clenched eyelids and rolled down her cheeks from the effort, but it wouldn't work.

And then, suddenly, it was gone. She collapsed to the ground, and the smooth stone tile, greatly contrasting with the pulsating heat in the air around her, pressed up against her cheek.

"Stop... Stop, please," she whispered. "It hurts... It hurts so much, I–"

She broke off in a scream of agony, cut off by the sudden reappearance of the sensation that her mind was on fire.

"Would you prefer I find the answers I seek in your family's minds? That of... your husband, perhaps?" There was that horrible voice again, sending terrified shivers down her spine with every word it spoke.

"NO!! Please, don't hurt him!" Ahsoka managed to lift herself to her knees, but fell down again a moment later. "He's not strong enough – you would kill him before you could even look deep enough to find the information!"

"Then... your daughter. She has the combined Force powers of the family Dume and the family Tano. She will be a suitable candidate for the inquisition."

Her breathing was shaky, but still she managed to recover some strength and pull herself to her feet. "Not Aeja, not any of them!" she yelled hoarsely, and despite her lack of weapons, her voice was still defiant. "The New Jedi won't stand for this!"

She heard a laugh, and lunged in after it the direction she thought it was coming from. And then, out of the corner of her eye despite the impenetrable darkness, she spotted a fleeting shadow. She took two shaky steps towards it, but fell again.

Whoever was with her was shielding their presence in the Force in such a way that she couldn't track them. It was refracting off them like lights hitting a mirror, and being projected elsewhere to fool her.

"This is all an illusion; it's not real," Ahsoka whispered to herself.

"Oh, you'll find that it is very real," hissed the voice, and the shadows suddenly felt closer than they ever had before.

She was being wound up like a bug in a web – every step she had taken had brought the shadows closer. And now that she was down, she was totally vulnerable.

Ahsoka suddenly found herself in a swirling vortex of darkness, her limbs tied to her side by tendrils she strained to see. Panic began to rise in her stomach when she realized it was stopping her from breathing.

"Now, this is your last chance," said the haunting voice.

Her head was pounding from the lack of air, desperate to breathe, but her nose and mouth had been blocked. She wasn't far from unconsciousness.

"Tell me where she is, or they all die. Every single one of them dies."

KAYLIRA TRAMINO

Kaylira looked up from her hot berry mash – made with preserves from the harvest that fall back on Cialone –as her Master walked into the small kitchen on board the New Hope. The older freighter was still the Bonteri family and the Rebel Troopers' base of operations, as they were still busy getting everything in order with the new ship.

She immediately noticed the dark circles under the wise Togruta's eyes, and the bug-eyed sort of look her blue orbs had to them. And, also, she was still clad in her fluffy bathrobe and loose sleeping clothes. And considering that Ahsoka Tano was known by some of the Padawan classes she'd taught before Kaylira herself as being up before the birds, this wasn't a good sign at all.